Yankees will retire Joe Torre's No. 6

Thursday

May 8, 2014 at 9:26 PM

The Yankees will retire former manager Joe Torre's No. 6, leaving Derek Jeter's No. 2 as the last single digit in New York's pinstripes.

Torre, Rich Gossage, Tino Martinez and Paul O'Neill also will be honored with plaques in Monument Park, the team said Thursday. Torre managed the Yankees to World Series titles in 1996 and from 1998-2000 and six AL pennants during 12 seasons as manager that ended in 2007. Currently Major League Baseball's executive vice president for baseball operations, he is being inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame this summer.

BASKETBALL

Clippers' Crawford top 6th man

Jamal Crawford of the Los Angeles Clippers won the NBA Sixth Man Award, becoming the oldest recipient and the first to do so with different teams. The 34-year-old guard also was honored as the league's best player off the bench while with the Atlanta Hawks in 2009-10. Crawford led the league's reserve players in scoring this season, averaging 18.6 points. Taj Gibson of Chicago finished second and San Antonio's Manu Ginobili was third.

The estranged wife of Clippers owner Donald Sterling will fight to retain her 50 percent ownership stake in the team, her lawyer said Thursday, adding an unwanted twist to the NBA's plan to force new ownership on the franchise. Shelly Sterling's attorney, Pierce O'Donnell, said his client ''will not agree to a forced or involuntary seizure of her interest. As her lawyers we will fight vigorously to defend her property rights.'' O'Donnell said Mrs. Sterling has no interest in managing the Clippers and wants a new investor group to come in with a professional management team. O'Donnell also told The Associated Press that Shelly Sterling has been separated from her husband for the last year and is considering divorce.

GOLF

Kaymer's 63 gains 2-shot lead

Martin Kaymer stopped thinking, started swinging, and played his way into the record books in The Players Championship. Kaymer missed only two fairways. He putted for birdie on all but one hole. And the former PGA champion finished with four straight birdies to become only the fourth player to shoot 9-under 63 on the Stadium Course at the TPC Sawgrass, giving him a two-shot lead over Russell Henley. Kaymer took advantage of a perfect day for scoring — warm weather, hardly any wind and soft greens. There were 28 rounds in the 60s, which made the score by Adam Scott look even worse. Scott finished with a pair of double bogeys and signed for a 77.

COLLEGES

Starr opposed to NLRB ruling

Baylor University president Ken Starr voiced strong opposition Thursday to a regional National Labor Relations Board ruling that scholarship football players at Northwestern University are technically school employees and thus entitled to collective bargaining rights. Starr, a former federal judge and prosecutor, said it would be very disruptive if college athletes were allowed to unionize. Starr, who as an independent prosecutor led a five-year investigation of President Bill Clinton in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals in the 1990s, testified about the NLRB ruling at a hearing by the House Education and Workforce Committee. The committee's chairman, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said allowing college athletes to unionize would set a ''dangerous precedent for colleges and universities nationwide.''